


That I Might Be a Part of This

by narie



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nicaise Lives, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, canon-typical childhood sexual abuse, five things fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:13:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8141753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narie/pseuds/narie
Summary: Five ways Nicaise lives.





	1. scenes from a room

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to floss for letting me bounce ideas and freakouts off her repeatedly. 
> 
> Please note that this is a story about Nicaise, with all the baggage that entails. Nothing is graphically described, but the relationship between Nicaise and the Regent is present in multiple sections and specific acts are fleetingly alluded to more than once and take place during the course of the story. If you need more details, drop me a note.

Looking back, it was simple to say when it had all begun to turn awry. They were in bed together. The night was growing long, and his lord, sated and content, turned to face him and said, “I require something from you.” 

Nicaise did not say, "of course." It had never been in his nature to acquiesce readily to things, and besides, agreeing too quickly made one look weak. Instead he watched, and kept expectation off his face.

“Tonight, you will go into Govart’s room. There is something there I need. A letter — a sheaf of papers. I do not know where he keeps it, but you will bring it to me.” 

“Govart,” he echoed, full of disdain. Govart was ugly, brutish, and imposingly large. Not as large as the Prince’s Akielon brute, perhaps, but crueler by far. He would not have turned Nicaise away at the ring, uttering improprieties about the tastes of Veretian men. He would not be kind, were he to find Nicaise in his room. 

“He will not be there,” his lord continued, perhaps guessing at his thoughts. “Nicaise, you will do this for me, won’t you? It would please me _very_ much.” His words held both promise and threat; it had never been Nicaise’s favourite tone. 

Privately he told himself it would not be that hard — Govart would never tolerate being thought of as a man of letters, after all, and Nicaise did not expect to be spoilt for choice, when in his rooms — but still he asked, “How will I know I’ve found the right thing?” He did not want to have to return. And he could hardly afford to disappoint, these days. 

"You will know, but you mustn’t read it." 

“I won’t,” he said, a promise he might have even kept. 

“Good boy.” His lord ran a possessive hand down his back, one that turned into a firm push, and Nicaise needed no further instruction to rise and depart. He had a task to accomplish.

It was not the first time something like this had been asked of him. His lord did not require this particular service often, but Nicaise was small and clever and eager to please, and there were so many advantages to that. He could tuck himself into narrow passages, and hide in places where others could not, and that often meant they did not think to search there. But he did not need much of his skill tonight — it seemed to him that the corridors were emptier than usual. Even the doorway to the Prince’s apartments was unexpectedly unmanned, as if the entire palace yearned for his success. 

But once he reached Govart's room, nightshirt trailing loosely underneath a hastily donned silken robe, ready to hide his prize, the task went wrong. 

“It wasn’t there,” he was forced to admit on his return. “I looked everywhere. I am sorry," he added, reluctantly. His lord was the only person Nicaise would apologise to, and even then he made no habit of it. He clenched his hands into frustrated fists, out of sight behind his back, and looked contrite, and could not help but think once more about the days left on his contract. 

"Then you shall just have to try again," his lord said, not bothering to soften his discontent. 

But he did not succeed. When Govart rode out two days later with the Prince he spent nearly a fill night turning over the entire room, but the letter was nowhere to be found. Maybe it had never been there, or maybe Govart had taken it with him; whatever the truth his failure lay heavy between the two of them, no matter how hard Nicaise tried to bridge the gap. The new distance made him uneasy. It made other things less likely. 

Some weeks later, after a day spent in a lengthy council of state, his lord told him, ”I sail for Akielos in the morning. I have received alarming news. Laurent’s treachery has gone too far.” 

There was a lengthy pause, and Nicaise, on stiff knees, on the floor, realised he was being given the chance to speak. But he had watched and served long enough to have learned that with his lord, a gift was never a gift, a simple offer never just that. And he had not bothered to hide his displeasure at Nicaise’s failure with Govart. Nicaise remembered, at any rate, Laurent — that was, the Prince — and the Akielon slaves, and a dinner in honour of some dull Patran guests. Forgiveness had never come easy to him.  

He wiped his mouth and looked down at his hand, now covered in paint. “Will you be gone long?” he asked, sitting back.

“Perhaps. If Laurent surrenders quickly...” he sighed, and trailed off. “But I suspect he will not. When has he ever made things easy for himself, after all?”

"Will you harm him?" Nicaise asked next, knowing full well that his lord could be a ruthless man, all the more for how well he pretended he was not. 

"If I must," came the reply. "But it will bring me no joy. If I do so, it will be to preserve Vere, as is everything I do.”

Again a silence between them, dangerous and fraught. Nicaise closed his mouth and cast his eyes low. It gave him the time to realise that he did not truly wish the Prince ill — he did not like him all that much, but the disdain did not reach so far as outright loathing, and the Prince had been kind to him sometimes, before the Akielon slave turned his eyes and thoughts.

"You will stay here and wait for my return." His lord finally said. He placed a heavy hand on Nicaise's hair, impersonal and still — moving it would have disturbed the jewels Nicaise had made the servants weave into his hair earlier, he told himself. His voice was casual, removed; for all that Nicaise was certain of having just done something right, it held no trace of warmth. “Now go. I have matters to attend to, before I depart.”

Early the next morning his lord shook him awake to say, "You’re growing up, Nicaise. But I never cast aside a piece unless I am sure it is of no more use," before walking away. There was no fond farewell, no renewal to discuss or promises to return. He simply left, and left Nicaise behind. 

The days passed in solitary boredom after that. Nicaise quickly exhausted the possibilities of their rooms, only to discover he was not allowed beyond them. With Regent and Council gone, the soldier standing told him, the bulk of the guard had gone with them. There was no one spare to speak for him, should trouble arise. He was safest inside, where none may be tempted to strike a blow against his lord through Nicaise. The Regent himself had asked him to ensure Nicaise did not stray far, he said, and he would honour that task. Anything he required, the man would see that he received. 

What Nicaise wanted most, however, was company. Yet guards and servants made for poor conversation, Nicaise having never bothered to cultivate their regard before. And so in the mornings he was indolent, in the afternoons restless, and in the evenings bored. Without court dinners to attend, without pets to goad or Akielon slaves to torment, every day stretched tedious and hollow. He found little solace in the nocturnal quiet of the gardens, which his room overlooked, bereft of their usual revelry and courtiers. With the court gone the silence of the palace was not soothing. It put him in mind of stories his cousins would tell to frighten him, of crypts and forgotten things. 

When sunlight streamed into their rooms, dappled and fractured by the carvings on the window grilles, he would stand in front of the mirror and harshly examine himself. His gaze was relentless. Why had he been left behind? Was it Govart? He _had_ tried, searching the room with increasingly frantic intent every time, keenly aware of the danger of failure. Was it his face? He had noticed it sharpening, told himself repeatedly it was only just the growing harshness of summer light, that the coarse hairs that threatened to blossom on his jawline had been there before. Maybe his legs? The delicate hem of his delicate silks did rise higher and higher away from his ankles, seemingly by the day. His voice? It had quivered once or twice, but never in front of his lord. What other failings did he have? He must find out, so they could be redressed in time for his lord’s return. 

By night he often dreamed, tossing and turning in a bed too big for a boy like him alone. They were pleasant dreams, of longing and reunion, and that only made them all the harder to wake from. Other nights he lay awake tallying the days, the quickly dwindling remnants of his contract. The only news from the south spoke instead of the Prince’s taking of Fortaine, of his crossing into Akielos; his lord sent no word from, no promise of return. In his mind Nicaise drew up lists of suitors, but with the whole court so far it was impossible to contact any of them without risking discovery, and that would mean no renewal at all. Unable to think of a way to contact them, he wrote no letters at all. Besides, his lord could still come back. 

After a month of confinement one morning a flood of servants descended upon the room. They were not his lord’s own, and they laboured under the watchful gaze of a proud man who wore many rings in each hand, and whom he finally recognised as the Prince’s steward. While the servants might have been happy to ignore him, this man — Rabel? Nicaise had never before bothered with servants’ names, especially those that did not attend to him — was not. With a smug, satisfied smile, and a gaze to match, he said, “His Majesty Laurent has ascended to the throne of Vere, and his uncle has been exposed as an usurper and traitor to the crown. The King has ordered all remnants of his uncle’s presence struck from the palace halls before his return.”

“The King?” Nicaise asked, which was a foolish thing to do. Between the livery, the steward’s unrestrained preening and the words, there was no uncertainty in what had taken place far away. His lord was deposed — most likely dead — and the Prince had outsmarted him. And so Nicaise was suddenly left fully adrift.

“As I said,” the steward sneered, speaking slowly, as if to a dumb child. “His Royal Highness King Laurent of Vere and Acquitart has claimed his birthright, and his treacherous uncle will not be spoken of again. I am tasked with readying the palace for him. We clear these chambers in preparation for the King's return. And that includes clearing you out.”

“No!” In all of his sleepless nights had failed to consider this possibility, being turned out outside the palace walls with no one at his beck and call. It had been too long since that, and Nicaise had been too good at setting aside his past and settling into his new role, thinking always he would have more time than this. “You cannot make me leave. The Pri— the King, he wouldn’t like that. He promised to buy my contract, before his departure.” 

Rabel stared at him, unamused and unconvinced. “The King has never taken a pet. Why would he want the one his treacherous uncle left behind?” he asked, and it was hard to guess whether the delight in his voice was born from satisfaction at Nicaise’s plight, or simple pride at being at the helm of the household of the King. 

“He likes me!” HIs voice quivered, but it was only with emotion, urgency. He struggled to recall if this man had ever witnessed the times he and the Prince — the King, he corrected again — had got along. The humiliation with the Patrans did not count, but at least Nicaise was confident that a servant, especially one as pompous as this one, would not have been invited to a dinner like that, for all that rumours would have likely trickled down from the other pets, delighted in his shame. “He will not be happy to hear you turned me out. Do you really want to disappoint him so fast?”  

Rabel’s fear of his King’s legendary ire saved Nicaise’s life. He watched the decision being made, the narrow, wary stare as Rabel said, with a nod to one of his men, “Move him to the pet quarters for now. I will consult with his Majesty the King.” 

And so Nicaise stepped outside his old master’s rooms for the first time in a full turning of the moon. Not bound, but not free, and brimming with new unease. 

The King’s men left him alone in his new apartments, which were far plainer than the ones he had been forced to depart, and his days regained their familiar, dragging pace. He was brought food at consistent times, and granted leave to bathe, and, well aware of his precarious situation, no one spoke to him, until one morning Rabel returned and with a grimace and a strained voice said, “His Majesty sends greetings and expresses his sincere delight at hearing you live, for the traitor had led him to believe you were dead. He has named you a Ward of the Crown and orders that anything you request, within reason, be made available to you.” There he faltered, and it was only after an uncomfortable beat that he finished things with a transparently insincere and reluctant, “Sire."

Nicaise had never been 'sire' before. It had a good sound to it, but also a worrisome one, speaking as it did to responsibilities and duties. It was laden with unspoken duties, something of which Nicaise had never been fond. For all that he enjoyed collecting the intrigues of the court, some things were best when plainly stated, and expectations were one of them. 

But he pushed aside those thoughts and set himself to exploring the true extent of the new King’s largesse, for the Prince had always been an ascetic. The first thing he demanded was the return of his paints, his jewels, and his silks. Rabel nodded stiffly and sent a servant, a reserved old man with a hesitant walk, who guided him to a dark storeroom in a part of the palace Nicaise had never explored before. Together they sorted through what remained of Nicaise's old life until they gathered a tidy pile - sapphires and pearls and gold, the finest Kemptian weaves and Patran cosmetics. They did not find it all, but, Nicaise thought, it would be enough, at least for now. The Prince — the _King_ , he had to keep correcting himself, to avoid falling into presumptuous familiarity — would return, and perhaps he intended to make good on his promise to Nicaise, and make a bid for his contract, for why else would he have been allowed to remain in the palace? At night, thinking about it, he decided he would accept, but not before seeking other offers and once again making his worth clear to all. 

He next demanded a mirror, and filled his days practicing with his paints, alone. But the light in his new rooms was thin and watery, bouncing off the pond in the courtyard outside, and without servants or a steady, practiced hand, it was hard. The outcomes alternated between garish and sad, far from the flawlessness he had always worn. He scrubbed furiously, and started again. He would not be found wanting.

Paint half on, half off, was how a servant found him one day, a man in full robes trailing behind. Old and awkward and unpretty, the man clearly had less intimidating places to be; a small cause for delight. 

“His Majesty the King sends me," the man said, when they were left alone. Nicaise made himself smile through his paint, slightly softening the contempt in his gaze. He could ill afford not to ingratiate himself with an envoy of the King’s. “I was his tutor, when he was a child. Do you know your letters—"

"Of course," he interrupted. "I am no simpleton." Although he had been, not so long ago. But days were long and hard to fill when you had to share your only master with a whole country. It was only boredom that had driven him to learn. 

"And your sums?"

"Also," he answered, but he did not quite understand. Did the Prince expect him to perform feats of intellect, to earn his favour? Was that truly where he found delight? Nicaise had much more pleasant skills than that. And those he had practiced too, in the empty hours. 

His answers were meaningless, because the man — his new _tutor_ , he realised with glum surprise — did not take him at his word. Nicaise spent the rest of the day reading and multiplying until his competence was established beyond doubt, and when he departed, the man left some books behind and a promise to return. Nicaise might wish to read them, he said. A suggestion of the King, and Nicaise was left to uncertainly consider at them. 

Alone in the dim light of his lamp Nicaise recalled once more that the Prince had always had a preference for the drab and the austere, and wiped the remaining paint off one last time, carefully closing every pot and tin, knowing he would not reopen them any time soon. His face had grown undeniably sharper under his oil-soaked cloth, and that unsettled him. But the King would be coming back to Arles, and Nicaise would be prepared. The first book on the pile, however, promised a treatise on the military history of Vere, and it was so frightfully dull he could not force himself to read beyond the first handful of pages. The second one told of long-dead kings, and the third was even worse, lengthy descriptions of the merits of Vaskian horse breeds. He set them aside with a heavy sigh, flopping down on his bed, and wished once more for someone to talk to instead. 

Even in his seclusion outlandish rumours made their way to him — that the King was besotted and wore an Akielon slave cuff; that he had bent Akielos to his will with a word and little more; that he had given all of Akielos to his slave as a bedding gift; that he had regained Delfeur for Vere, winning it back from the returned prince-killer of Akielons; that slave and prince-killer were one and the same. On their own none of them made sense, but taken together they all suggested the same thing: if there was truth to them, Nicaise had to admit that he had never truly known who the Prince was. It was not a comforting thought, not for him, who made an art and a living of knowing his lord's preferences in order to know how and when to please. And although Nicaise had never counted any of them as friends, he’d overheard the pets in the palace speak about these things often, and thought them foolish and unskilled as they sought each other’s council. But if the rumours were true the new King favoured the company of barbarians and brutes, men Nicaise shared nothing with. How then, to predict that which he did not understand?

And so he gathered some courage and when breakfast arrived at the hand of an unexpected Radel — not Rabel, for all that the name was more appropriate — he said, “I’ve heard the King is fucking his brother’s killer.”

Radel stiffened. “A child in the care of the crown should speak of it with more respect. You would do well not to heed rumours and mistruths, and always remember that you are here at his Majesty’s generosity,” he replied. “He sails for Marches soon, and will ride for Arles before the end of next week. The King of Akielos journeys at his side,” It was not an easy reply, or a straightforward one, and in the things it left unsaid there was room only for concern. Even Radel had struggled with speaking of the King’s travelling companions, completely unable to mask his disgust. 

_I would never ask you to do anything you found distasteful_ , Nicaise recalled as he ate, only because he had thought at that time that they would be the Prince’s last words to him. But perhaps he had only meant that he expected Nicaise would learn to enjoy himself, or perhaps that he would not _ask_ , but rather _tell_. He knew better than most that the Prince could be soft, but he was also cruel and sharp, and his words often held edges that were invisible until you had already been cut by them. Which parts of the Prince were real and which feigned? He had had a man whipped almost to his death for a transgression no one knew, after all, and yet now he lay with him, untroubled by that past. No one who had seen the Akielon slave's back would question the new King’s coldness or the reach of his wrath, and if it was true that the man he took to bed was the same one who had killed the old Crown Prince, his beloved golden brother, well, then... what did it say about him as a man? Nicaise hoped he was not alone in being frightened by that. 

Uncertainty had never sat well with him, and he considered things the rest of the day. He had recovered enough gold and gems from his old gifts. Likely he could use them to buy himself many things, beyond the palace walls. His arts were well-known and well-envied, and he had never been short of admirers. It should be easy, finding a new patron to take him in. Emboldened, he demanded parchment and quill, composing teasing notes to a handful of nobles, returned to the city ahead of their new King. Leaving much unsaid, he insinuated his circumstances, his unease, and ended by suggesting a meeting to discuss terms would be agreeable to him. There was nothing unseemly to it, now. His previous contract had officially come to an end a few days ago.

When no replies came the first day, he made himself not worry. It was too little time, he reassured himself, constantly looking up at the door while his tutor attempted to teach him about the reign of Boutart the Mad. But they did not come the next day either, or the one after that. His star it seemed, had faded fast; or maybe it was the King’s, that shone too bright. 

“I want to leave,” he told Radel, voice haggard after a troubled night that had brought no better fix. “When can I leave?” 

Surprised into unusual stillness, Radel stared at him. “You are free to do as you please, but His Majesty had hoped you would stay, at least until his return” he finally said, which only confirmed that Nicaise was right to do this thing instead. 

“Then you can’t stop me,” he insisted.

"The King arrives in two days."

“ _Tomorrow_ , then," Nicaise said. It was safer, their paths not crossing again. 

“As you wish. A servant will be sent to help you gather your effects,” the steward said, and Nicaise could not help but read a flicker of satisfaction in his face. He did not bow as he departed. Fear surged through him: that it had all been a lie, or a monstrous trap, that once again he had been played by the Prince and would now be taken to a cell, his treason finally exposed for all to see and ridicule. But a serving girl appeared with his lunch at noon and then stayed behind to help him pack what little he had. He gathered his jewels and paints and silks, and left the books behind, most of them untouched. 

In the morning Radel handed Nicaise a pouch, heavy with coin. "Monies from the royal purse, as instructed by the King. As Ward of the Crown you are entitled to a small allowance until you come of age. You may collect it by sending word to the chancellory, once you are settled beyond the palace walls." 

The haggard old servant trailed after him, and Radel nodded and added, "He will escort you to your new lodgings, if they should be within Arles; your luggage will follow afterwards. When you are ready, you may depart." 

A final glance around the room revealed nothing of merit being left behind. All that he cared about — all that he owned — was tucked inside the two travelling trunks in the middle of the room and they looked very small, for holding the beginnings of his new life. But at least it was a life on his own terms, and given the alternative, that was quite the reassuring thing. Last night he had lain awake once more, conjuring a plan, telling himself it would not be all that hard. He’d make for Toutaine, for Audin’s estate, and demand to be taken in. The servants there were familiar with him, they would not turn him away. It was smart, leaving Arles, it would give him time to find someone to bid for him. Perhaps Audin himself. He had never been particularly fond, but if the man himself were to offer, well, at least Nicaise already knew what he could expect. 

The sun hung already high in the sky when they finally departed, a bright, relentless summer day. Arles was not a gentle city, frost-touched in the winter and stifling in the summer, and as he stepped outside the palace gates an onslaught of loud and harsh sounds assaulted him, no longer mellowed by the tall walls. The forecourt, kept free of the people milling beyond it by a large retinue of men at arms standing guard, seemed to him suddenly immense, untraversable. Beyond it the city’s roads were well-trodden and well-thronged both. He stopped, taking a moment to observe the crowds. None of the people passing by the palace spared him a glance. 

“Sire," the servant interrupted when Nicaise took too long to move. 

There were sour and unfamiliar smells in the air, cheap coal burning and the Seraine, diminished by summer’s heat and cloudless skies, sluggish, almost rancid; inside the palace, the gardens and the servants would have seen to that. Distantly, Nicaise recalled his cousins, here in Arles. He could make for their home tonight and set off for Toutaine after that, ask for their help finding a horse or a cart to carry him. Around him there was shouting, merchants making for the kitchen gates, a woman hefting heavy sacks of something onto a cart while another one cried her wares, words so quick and rough that they were almost a foreign tongue. Smoke rose from the gabled roofs ahead and shrouded the city in a low-hanging haze that the evening breeze would blow away later, but for now blurred them into a singular disorienting mess, and Nicaise realised he did not know which way Toutaine lay. He had not thought to look at a map. 

Nicaise had reached Arles weeks before his eleventh birthday already a cherished and exquisite royal pet, no longer the third child of a couple of no-ones from Varenne. The few times he had stepped beyond the palace walls, it had been on a litter, plump cushions underneath him, heavy silken drapes drawn. Never alone, never having to make decisions on his own. In the wavering light of his room his plan had seemed straightforward enough, but from the ground the reality of the city was an incomprehensible and daunting thing, eager to swallow him up with little thought. 

“Sire”, the old servant said again. “Where to?”  

He stood still, the sand of the forecourt shifting under his feet, the dust of the day settling on his skin. “Nowhere,” he finally admitted, and his voice quivered, even with just that one word. The old man lay what might have tried to be a comforting hand on Nicaise's shoulder, until, back straining with the effort to disguise a rising sob, he forcefully shrugged it off. 

Wordlessly he turned around, and began walking back towards the palace gates, and refused to consider that they would not open for him. His whole body was straining with the effort of holding his head high and his shoulders soft. The servant followed him, a discreet single pace behind, and said nothing when Nicaise sped up his pace at the threshold of the gates, in case a guard try to stop them as they crossed back into the clean, quiet halls. 

Back in his room Nicaise flung the door shut behind before finally allowing himself to cry. His trunks were still here, with all of his things, and he wrenched one of them open and shoved the heavy bag of coins at the bottom. He tugged hard at a scrap of diaphanous silk, an old favourite, and felt it rip as it snagged on something else. No matter. All he wanted it for was to dry his face, and he dabbed savagely at his eyes and nose, watching the weave spoil as it soaked up tears and snot. He locked the door. 

When the King finally arrived, Radel, speaking through the door that Nicaise still refused to open, strongly suggested that he might want to dress in his finest clothes and go prostrate himself at his feet, giving thanks for his munificence. Instead he disappeared into empty passageways deep in the palace, as far as he could take himself from the sounds of the triumphant royal homecoming. Only afterwards, when two days passed and no one demanded anything from him, did he consider what came next. 

From the servant girl that brought him breakfast Nicaise learned the dinner and revelry lasted well into the night every evening, and that the rumours about the Akielon slave and the Prince — the two Kings, now, although the real coronation would come only once the new council agreed — were all true. All manner of pets were vying for the King’s eye, but he would not be drawn towards any of them; in this, at least, he remained unchanged. 

He did not ask Rabel to arrange an audience, but face unpainted and simply dressed, and steps heavy with tension, the next morning he went to the throne room and slipped unnoticed into the crowd 

Seated on the throne, the King looked no different than before. The same fine circlet of gold on his head, the same tightly-laced clothes, the same diffidence in his tone and pose. But he held himself with confidence, occasionally leaning over to consult with the Akielon slave, who was unrecognisable save for his size, and who had been granted the consort’s chair, where Nicaise’s old lord had never allowed him to sit. Courtiers who only weeks ago had loudly denounced the Prince for a traitor and a fool surrounded the two of them, vying for the King’s regard. On any other day he would have drawn much enjoyment from watching them debase themselves, but far too soon the King noticed him, and bade him approach with a surprised call of, “Nicaise!” 

“He made me think you were dead,” he said after Nicaise had bowed at the dais, defiantly raised his eyes, and been beckoned closer. There was genuine warmth in his voice, or so it seemed to Nicaise. “I am truly glad to see you alive.”


	2. scenes from Ios

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more Nicaise/Regent in here than usual, although none of it is graphic. Drop me a note if you need details.

When his master asked it of him, Nicaise went. He treaded softly through the palace halls, through corridors empty and dark, until he reached Govart's room, and found what he had been sent to fetch. He had understood leverage a long time ago, and so he read enough of the letter to know he did not need to read more, before binding the papers again with their ratty old cord, and leaving Govart’s room, seemingly undisturbed. 

On his return his master was pleased; the next morning Nicaise woke alone, but found a lengthy string of perfectly round, fat, pearls on the pillow next to his head. He had his servants dress him in fine and flimsy silks, broke his fast and, pearls in hand, asked about him. He was with the Council, and with His Highness the Prince. Something happened last night, the servant said, but he did not know anything more. Nicaise did not trouble himself with finding out. If His Royal Highness was involved, it was doubtlessly a problem of some sort.

He had been with his master for three years now, and it had been time enough to learn plenty. And so, while the letter was not where Nicaise had left it last night, neither was it that hard to find, concealed between far less interesting things. He looked at it. It would be worth much, in someone else’s hands, but Nicaise had made a choice last night, and it was too late now to take it back. And so the letter stayed where it was, and Nicaise’s master joined him just in time to eat. He brought news — some sort of attack last night, in His Royal Highness’ rooms. Unsophisticated Akielon dogs, settling scores with knives and spilled blood. His Royal Highness would ride south, to the front, to deal with them. He would depart in two days. 

That was all his master told him over lunch, but Nicaise, by now, had learnt to hear more. On the day of His Highness’s departure he rose early and made for the courtyard where he was mustered with his pittance of men, sapphires in hand. Nicaise had not forgiven him for that night yet, for the shame of being so publicly outplayed, and much less for the disappointment in his master’s words afterwards, once he was made to admit to the role he had unknowingly played in the scheme. But His Royal Highness would not be returning, and they both knew that; the dinner with the Patrans would forever stand as the last time he had outsmarted Nicaise like that. Giving him the earring would not even matters between them, or lessen the sting of that defeat, but at least it would buy Nicaise the ability to open his jewelry chest without having to slam the lid shut in frustration and disgust afterwards. It was worth braving the dawn, for that. 

With His Highness departed, no one remained in the palace to prompt sudden gatherings of the full Court, and his master kept audiences predictable and brief. Standing on the dais became a boring chore, which Nicaise softened by judging every courtiers’ clothes. The season’s fashions leaned towards the austere and tightly laced with only a very distant promise of fun, perhaps as homage to the coming ascension of His Highness. It was a look that sat ill on most of the courtiers, grown soft and comfortable, and complicated things more than usual for their pets. 

Weeks passed, and then, at the end of one more tedious day, his master announced that the Court would make for Akielos, for their capital built atop sheer cliffs — a diplomatic mission to visit their new allies, nothing more. Nicaise would of course be travelling along, he reassured him afterwards. His master wouldn’t dream of leaving him behind. Nicaise had, after all, been quite a good boy as of late. 

The ride to the shore was dull and slow. Rather than atop a pony, or a horse, Nicaise journeyed in a wagon, shielded from the sun, with the wives of Jeurre and Herode, but he held himself apart from them. One was dressed in a travelling frock from three seasons ago; the other at least had donned a fine brocade of new silk, but in a colour unkind to her thin, sallow skin. They seemed to him _ancient_ , he thought, their faces sagging and wrinkled with age. Ancient, and dull, and they spoke of the sort of things old people did, of aches and failing bodies and regrets. He gazed at them for the entirety of the journey to the sea, his silence judgement enough. When the wagon halted they were both stiff and slow, while Nicaise made sure they could see him jump down without a second thought, nimble in his youth. From afar, he felt his master's approving gaze. He smiled, a satisfied, private thing, and returned to considering what he should do with the pearl string. He could have them sewn into his clothes, bright beads against a dark organza, like planets on cloudless night. Or perhaps, if his mood remained unchanged he would ask him master for silver and gold and fashion them into a net to rest atop his curls and set off his bright eyes. 

It was Nicaise’s first time journeying on a ship; indeed, his first seeing the sea. Privately he’d doubted it, that there was so much water that it would swallow the world, but as they left the port Vere grew smaller and smaller, until everything he had ever known was gone from view. To distract himself from feeling small he demanded one of the crewmen fetch some of seawater for him, so he may taste the salt himself, disbelieving that too for all that he could feel it moving with the wind and settling on his skin. He took a single cautious sip, and spat it out immediately, face curled in disgust. His master told him during dinner — a private affair, the two of them in the biggest cabin on the ship; a prelude to a long night — that where they were going it would be the same, when Nicaise plaintively complained about the brine. The Akielon capital sat tall on cliffs by this same sea, and its breezes were frequently sticky with spray from the waters below. And as they talked like any other night, it happened: Nicaise’s voice suddenly cracked in his throath, rising and falling and shattering at the end, all of it mid word. He flushed, disguising it as a sip of wine poorly swallowed, an embarrassment; nothing more. His master did not react, but the evening ended earlier than it should have, and Nicaise slept poorly, cold and uneasy in the pitching of the ship. 

After aking up alone the next morning, rather than rise he kept to his bed. Neither the waves nor the mounting heat agreed with him; everything about him ill at ease. But eventually the waters stilled and his seclusion grew too boring, and because he had nothing better to do he took advantage of the solitude to search through his master’s trunk. He was looking only for any jewels he might have stowed away to give Nicaise where they were going, so far from the skilled craftsmen of Arles, and eventually he found a secret compartment in the base. Inside it was a brooch, a cluster of bright red stones that glistened like pomegranate seeds, surrounded by fine gold filigree. Next to it, creased and crumpled so they would fit, were the papers Nicaise had stolen from Govart. 

In the evening his master returned, and amidst wine and conversation Nicaise set aside his nausea and pleased him as best as he knew. There was something relentless about his master’s touch that night, insistent and probing, as if he were re-learning Nicaise, but he accepted it, and chose not to ask why. 

Two mornings later they finally disembarked, but it proved small relief. Ios was ugly, seemingly fashioned solely out of towering slabs of undecorated, blinding white stone, and the rituals of Akielon court endlessly dull, conducted in a language he did not understand and with none of the refined entertainments that would have punctuated the monotony back home. With nothing else to entertain him he once more turned his thoughts and eyes to the dress of those around him. Although the — sticky indeed — blew freely enough outside, the air indoors lay heavy and stiff, and the Veretians were plainly struggling in the heat. Laces were surreptitiously loosened and overcoats forgotten, the lines of those expensive, carefully tailored outfits ruined, while the Akielons walked around half-clothed — even their bastard king — and sometimes Nicaise could not tell if it was slave or courtier in front of him, save for the gold chains around their necks and wrists. Draped in sheer silks, face painted with far more artistry than any of the Akielon slaves he spied scurrying through the palace, he himself made no concessions to the scandalised foreign gazes he received, but it was the only scandal he was allowed to create. Time and again he attempted to convince himself that it was solely out of needless deference to their barbarian hosts, but in public and private both his master had become sparse and withdrawn, and Nicaise found himself relegated to Audin’s desperate and sticky-handed care, which he escaped as deftly as he could, but not as often as he’d have liked. 

Akielon children, whom a bold and foolish local noble suggested he should spend his days with, were loud, dirty and uncouth, and they also ran around the palace almost fully nude. In Vere they would have been kept out of sight, secluded behind screens with nursemaids and tutors until they could have been trusted to behave themselves if not like adults, at least like Nicaise. Here they were not allowed to interrupt the formal business of the court but in the evenings, when dinners were informal and easy-going affairs that celebrated new kinship amongst old foes, they ran amok, darting and weaving through the hall and disrupting whatever insipid performance was being coaxed out of the dispirited slaves. They left shrill voices and destruction in their wake, splintered shards from their wooden practice swords, and perhaps all of these were things Nicaise might have learned to tolerate, had they not presumed to include him in their games. They only offered once, Nicaise’s retort too sharp and vicious to merit a second attempt. For good measure he had illustrated his words with gestures, for the brutes spoke only the barbaric tongue of Akielos. Since then they took great care to walk the same paths he did through the palace, bumping and shoving one another into walls. Nicaise responded in kind every time, hissing and spitting at their sandalled feet once or twice, until his master caught sight and told him to act his age. Boys would be boys, he said. Nicaise should know better than to lash out like that. His cheeks burned at being so publicly chastised, and one Akielon brat sniggered at his discomfort. Nicaise promised himself revenge. 

But it was a struggle to keep his back straight and his tone disdainful through it all. Much like the ship, this foreign land did not agree with him: his legs had been hurting, as of late, and his shoulders too. It was an ache he had not felt before, and it sat deep within his bones, as if their ends were being pulled apart. As if he were being rent apart, torn by some constant, relentless force. He attempted to hide it, blaming his aches and his insatiable hunger on the inferior Akielon food, and telling himself nothing was wrong. But one morning, on the way to the pillared white hall were the two courts would gather, he noticed the hemline of his silks riding high, brushing not against his ankles like it had used to, but against his shins. He arrived late, that day. 

His time in Ios became the bleakest of months — there was so little to distract him, little to think of other than the pain and all it brought along, or of how for weeks now there had been no talk of his contract, of renewal, His Royal Highness’s words coming back to him. He explored the city, where he confirmed Akielons favoured plainness and dullness in all things, even in the fabrics and seamstresses he furtively sought out. He explored the palace gardens too, where he discovered that the severe geometry of Akielos was truly impossible to escape, and promised privacy for no one. With bells around his ankles, or at his neck, and two members of the Regent’s Guard always at his side, he found no craftsman to entrust the string of pearls to. There was also no one here to talk with him, exchanging sharp words like warriors traded blows down in the sawdust arena; with a shock he realised he even missed His Royal Highness and his venomous tongue. But he disguised all of his longing as complaints, those evenings when his master would return and still find him awake, and thus learnt that he had seized control of multiple forts in southern Vere, and rode south with his slave, who was Damianos of Akielos, returned from the dead. And so it went: Akielon prince-killer and Veretian treacherous prince, united and bearing down on them. 

Although incredible, the news were undeniable, arriving on a long trail of deaths — none of which Nicaise particularly mourned — and spread from courtier to courtier, each of them more shocked than the one before. For all that his master insisted it was all simple proof of his nephew’s inability to rule, and of his perfidy, proof also of the undue sway Akielos held over him, Nicaise found his affections even shorter and more distant. So he withdrew too, keeping to himself. There followed quiet days, when he did not speak much lest his voice betray him, and the times he did he found his tongue sharper than before. The Akielon children had long grown tired of him and for the most part were content to leave him to his own company, until one morning the boldest of the lot rushed by, chiton held in place with a pomegranate wedge, a splash of gold and red. The sight of it was so far removed from anything Nicaise expected that he did not understand it at first, and when recognition finally dawned he found that his anger was not hot, but calculating and cold. 

At his master’s side, Nicaise had learned to understand leverage and the burden a secret could be. Rather than lash out and take what by rights should have been his, he excused himself from the court’s business and did not fail to notice the way he was readily dismissed. While his master outsmarted the bastard Akielon king, Nicaise made straight for the secret compartment at the base of his trunk, and then for the city, this time searching for an Akielon scribe that would not understand the words. His string was two pearls shorter, when he returned to their rooms and put Govart’s treasure back in its hiding place, but he deemed it a small price to pay for a secret like the one he now owned. Besides, it would not be difficult to alter the design he’d finally settled on to accommodate the loss. 

And so it went. He saw the child again some days later, quieter and crueler than before, and noticed the way his master’s eyes followed him at dinner. The pomegranate brooch did not reappear; the entire thing subtly was done. Had he not know what to look for he likely never would have guessed it, for his master did not speak of it when they were together. Each morning he catalogued his blossoming aches upon waking, counting down the days in his contract and wondering what would come next, until one early morning his master rode out and returned with His Traitorous Royal Highness, head bowed and arms bound, behind him. 

That evening he asked for directions to the cells, and no one denied him because in their eyes he was still the Regent's beloved pet. He found His Highness in the last one, sitting very still, unaware of Nicaise's approach. He wore Akielon clothes, dirty and unkempt, and looked nothing like he should have, or like he ever had before. Possibly because he believed himself alone and unobserved, it was not difficult for Nicaise to read resignation in the set of his shoulders, and defeat in the curve of his back. Not even when the Regent had stripped his land and titles away had he looked this diminished. Nothing high about him remained.

“I told you you wouldn't go back," Nicaise said, instead of any other first words.

The Prince startled at his voice, but gathered himself straightaway, schooling his face into a tight, wry smile. "Nicaise. Have you come to gloat? It is unbecoming."

"No," Nicaise said. "I've come to talk. Akielos is boring, and he says that tomorrow you'll be dead, so this is the last chance we have.” His voice cracked, when he said that. The Prince did not comment on it, but he allowed one eyebrow to arch, which Nicaise pretended not to see. He stared at his wrist instead, circled in dull gold that Nicaise knew used to belong to someone else. "Is it true you're getting fucked by your Akielon slave? Even though he killed your brother?"

“Yes.” His face was as stoic and immutable as ever, for all that he was admitting to a monstrosity. Nicaise narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t believe you." 

"You're the one who asked.” He did not even sound ashamed. They stared at each other for some time, and while the Prince appeared content to simply sit and watch, Nicaise tried to do the same but found he could not still his mind well enough. It seemed to him that there were too many thoughts inside, crowded, fighting for space, although they always came back to his master, and to the letter he had stolen for him from Govart. 

"What’s he like?" The words tumbled forth before he really thought them through, and when he heard himself speak them he abhorred the simple curiosity of his tone. 

The Prince’s gaze filled with a softness Nicaise did not expect, or wanted to understand. "He's kind,” he said, leaving it at that. But Nicaise had met the large Akielon man, and could not picture anything gentle about him, nor indeed about lying with him. 

“He probably just bends you over and takes what he wants. Do you even know what to do, or do you just lie there, cold like a dead fish?” 

“Oh, Nicaise,” he said, still far too gentle. “He’s far kinder than your master.”

“You’re lying,” replied Nicaise. ”Besides, your uncle loves me. He's generous and treats me better than you ever would have. He says I’m the best boy he’s ever had.” And somewhere in the palace, an Akielon child was pinning his clothes with a brooch of rubies and gold that had been meant for him. 

"I believed that too, once. And here I am."

“It was your choice,” Nicaise insisted, pushing all other thoughts aside. “If you weren’t such a spiteful fool you wouldn’t be about to die.”

“You mean, if I’d been a good boy?” the Prince laughed — or at least Nicaise supposed that was what the sound was meant to be. His words were suddenly bitter and sharp. “Oh, but I _was_. Don’t you listen, Nicase? I thought you were smarter than that.” 

It was something in the tone, perhaps, or in the familiar phrase being spat at his feet with so much anger and disgust. Or maybe it was the memory of his master’s touch, more distant and careless every night, and the sudden vision of how he would always touch the Prince at court, that lazy possessive grip, or all of the Prince’s repeated warnings and overtures and the strange kinship he offered Nicaise, when no one else back home would. It was all of those, and more, perhaps, but it was straightforward, and he wondered how he had missed it this far. “ _You_ ,” he said, as slowly as he could, like he could stop the truth that had already borne down on him, “ _and him_.” 

Nicaise’s concerns were swept far away, as he focused on this new, horrible thing. He would not accept the Prince’s evasion, not when the score lay so uneven between them, and for all that the Prince acted as if he had not heard, his expression was too taut and bloodless to disguise the truth. “You and him,” he said again, insistent, louder this time, as the idea moved through him, reshaping past conversations and advice, filling every part of him with both jealousy and disgust. It grew and grew, until it became a heavy dark thing sinking into his belly, weighing him down. "You’re _disgusting_ ,” he managed to spit out, before he had to look away. 

The Prince nodded, just once. His face was transformed, serious and sad, and in it Nicaise found shame and regret, and once more, the immeasurable burden that a secret could be. "Think kindly of me, Nicaise, if you can,” he said, and for the first time was the one to look away. “I’ve never meant you harm."

"If I think of you at all," said Nicaise, and turned around to depart, because he could not bear to stay.

On the way back he took the longest path. His master and the Prince, he thought, and found that the revulsion was still hard to contain, curdling in his stomach and threatening to rise up — uncle and nephew, like _that_. But worse was having to admit to himself that disgust was not the only thing making him shudder and his skin unpleasantly tight, made his footsteps unsure and the thought of nights spent together far less pleasurable than it had been. 

When he reached their rooms he found that beyond the usual lamps, his master had also had a fire lit, even though the heat of the summer day was still trapped in the palace stones. The smell of burning paper hung heavy in the air, and amidst the grey ashes Nicaise saw the remnants of a tattered cord, most of it already consumed. But Nicaise was not supposed to know what the letter had said, much less where it had been kept, and so when his master asked where he had been, Nicaise did not lie, but also did not speak the entire truth. 

His master was in a good mood, and his hands had suddenly recalled their fondness for him. Three months ago there would have been words of renewal in between each touch, and three months ago Nicaise would have signed his name to paper without further thought, but tonight he wondered about the Akielon boy instead, and tried to decide which of them, Prince or Regent, he should support, and which one he should despise. 

It took him until the middle of the night to make his choice, until the the immediate revulsion had lessened to a dull and persistent distaste. The Prince might have spoken praise and fond words about the man that had killed the brother everyone knew he idolised, but everyone also knew he was frigid and he had never been seen fucking any of the palace’s pets. And Nicaise had been young, but not a babe, when the Akielons had killed King and Crown Prince both. He hazily remembered days of mourning, the whole of Arles, it seemed, swathed in black silks, and his mother absent-mindedly wondering about the newly orphaned spare Prince, his kingdom held in trust in his uncle’s hands. Nicaise had read the letter from the archer. And there was the Akielon brat, running around with a brooch that should have belonged to Nicaise. 

In the morning he followed his master to the throne room, sitting down in the stool that had been set out for him, and did not fail to realise that in this foreign court the Veretians, armour and weapons shining bright, outnumbered their hosts. Nicaise found he could not bring himself to look at the Prince for long — besides, he held himself boringly still, imperturbably staring ahead as if the inevitable nearness of his death were not a concern, and answered none of the questions asked of him with anything other than evasions. Watching him Nicaise found it hard to decide if it was courage or cowardice that kept his lips so tightly shut, his gaze so fixed, but in either case it tipped over from entertaining to frustrating as the morning wore on, and it was only the Council’s deference to his master that prolonged the affair. They were his to command, had been so for as long as Nicaise had been a member of the court. Nicaise never wondered how his master had achieved this — after all, he had been part of it, filling the empty spaces in widowed Audin’s life, gaining Chelaut’s trust, collecting rumours like a flittering bird, bringing them back to his master like a magpie to its nest. 

Nicaise grew bored at first, then restless. The sorry spectacle was dragging slowly onwards to its obvious end, when, ushered in at the mercy of a bright Akielon sword, he appeared: the Prince's slave. Still completely incapable of keeping his feelings off his face, eyes constantly turning towards the Prince, he proved far more interesting to watch. He no longer wore his gold collar, and his sole remaining cuff was visibly twin to the one vulgarly visible on the Prince’s arm, and none of that was necessary to judge the devoted wanting in his gaze. Kind, the Prince had called him. It looked like more, to Nicaise. Affecting boredom once more he sat back and watched them, rolling his eyes at the slave’s stupidity when he summoned Guion to their defence. Even the dimmest of pets were quick to realise he was the most loyal of the whole council, and the hungriest one too. 

Guion’s wife stepped forward next, to tell the tale of her little, foolish, Aimeric, but she was not enough to save anyone either. In the final silence after the slave’s desperate words, as old man Herode moved to pronounce the Prince’s doom, Nicaise thought about it only for an instant before he took a deep breath and blurted out, “The Regent has harmed the Crown," as loud as he was capable of, which was not really that loud at all. His voice betrayed him this time too, and most of the room did not hear his words. But Herode, sceptre in hand, halted mid-step, which was all Nicaise had wanted. 

"Sit down, _child_ ," said his master. Strong fingers dug painfully into his arm, tugging him towards his stool. "The boy is confused. He does not know of what he speaks," he said, and his voice filled the room far better than Nicaise’s could have hoped to. 

He fought against his master’s insistent grip, and rose again. With just a handful of words he was become a performer amongst kings, all eyes drawn to him, but he looked only at the Prince, whose face had become a horrified mask. He had flushed deep red with what must be anticipated fear and shame, so certain of the truth Nicaise was about to expose. Nicaise smiled at him. It was not a kind smile, he knew, and he allowed himself briefly to think of what would happen, were he to follow that path. The Prince would never survive that; even if the Council were to find the Regent at fault, they would not be able to look beyond the years of whispers against the nephew. He would never rule, never rise above his shame. They both knew that, and there was a desperate plea for silence in his eyes, a resignation and surrender that in that moment was more than sufficient to even the score between them. 

So Nicase said, louder this time, ”the Regent is to blame for the death of the old King,” and kept his gaze on the Prince. His eyes widened with surprise, all the colour draining from his face. Herode frowned at him. The rest of the Council stared, on their faces varying expressions of disbelief. The Akielon slave sagged against the soldiers restraining him, possibly with relief, while the assembled Veretian courtiers gasped. Even Guion looked slightly surprised.

“ _Sit down_ ,” his master hissed once more. His tight grip had doubtlessly already left a mark, and under Herode’s suddenly sharp eyes he found that he did want to sit, and hide, but he shook off his master’s grip and remained standing. 

“This is a grave accusation,” said Herode. “Have you any proof? Speak and be true, or a traitor's death will be your fate too.”

“He does not,” his master replied in his stead. “He is nothing but a jealous boy that should know his place, spinning tales and wasting our time. Proceed with your judgement. This trial has grown overly long.”

"I do,” Nicaise said, louder and more certain this time. He could see the courtiers at the end of the room straining forward to hear him. "There was a letter. He made me steal it from Govart, but it was addressed to the old King's physician, Paschal. He burned it in front of me, but I had a copy made."

For all that he knew what to expect, and the weight of what he was about to do, he could not help but be taken aback by how swiftly things unravelled, after that. Herode demanded to see the letter, which Nicaise produced from the folds of his clothes, and no one believed him until Paschal stepped forward to fill what missing gaps he could with the look of a man who feared his life was suddenly forfeit. Throughout, the Prince’s gaze darted back to him time and again, and in it Nicaise saw horror, but also confusion and gratitude, the most unguarded his face had ever been. Some more readily than others, the Council’s loyalties shifted, and then the Prince became the King, and Nicaise’s master was no more. It was a messy business, which Nicaise tried to force himself to watch. It was expected of him, now that he had no chance but to grow up. 

When it was all finished, bells stilled and bodies removed, he was summoned. A man in the livery of the Prince’s Guard led him to a small room, all white marble and sea breeze, and there he was, back in proper dress, a circlet of gold on his head, and the other around his wrist, visible only as a bump through his sleeves. There were still traces of shock on his face, and in the way he was holding himself, but his expression was the gentlest Nicaise recalled ever seeing on his face. Kindness, once more. ”I won't ask why,” he said, and Nicaise was glad. The answer was far more complicated than his grateful tone called for. “But thank you.”

Thank you for what you did, heard Nicaise, and also thank you for what you did not do. “It wasn't for you,” he said, which was close enough to the truth, “but for me.” 

The King nodded. “Whatever your reasons, you saved my life. You shall have whatever you desire, when we return home.” 

Nicaise considered him. Afterwards he would make his demands, but for now he simply said, “I told you it would be harder to win, next time.”


	3. scenes from the road

“He’s in a foul mood,” the Prince’s slave said, jerking his head towards the Prince’s room. It was more likely than not true, and it gave Nicaise pause, a moment to think about what he had just seen: the slave, stopping in front of his bedroom, closing the doors with care so as to not make a sound. There was a wariness to his steps that had never been there before, which Nicaise readily recognised as the sign of a man who did not wish to be seen. It all came together in his head — the hour, the eerie silence, the wrong guards outside. “You’re _escaping_ ,” he said. 

The slave shook his head. In the flickering dimness of the corridor Nicaise thought he saw him stiffen. “You’re mistaken. He sent me to fetch his men.”

From anyone else he would have believed it, but the slave’s master was the Prince, and Nicaise had known him for too long. “No. He’d never ask his slave to do anything like that. You’re trying to escape.”

“I am not,” the slave insisted. “I’ve been sent to find Jord and Orlant.”

The sheaf of papers under Nicaise’s arm was a heavy burden. He had been told not to read it, but as he’d stood in Govart’s room the thought had struck that whatever was written could be a useful thing. It was not for nothing that he had watched the Regent rule the last three years. Yet, until tonight, Nicaise had never given thought to what happened outside the rooms in which they schemed, more than satisfied with the excitement of being involved. And having just read what those cunning words could achieve he found himself disturbed, even a little bit ill, with the knowledge that perhaps he’d helped do similar things. A comfortable place at court was one thing, thoughtlessly doling out death and life another, and it was that difference, suddenly sharp in his mind, that made him meet the slave’s eyes and demand, “Take me with you.” 

“Absolutely not,” replied the slave immediately, keeping his voice low. His gaze focused somewhere far behind Nicaise, where the corridor met the apartment’s inner doors. Not escaping. Hah! 

"Take me with you, or I will scream.” The letter shifted and threatened to fall as he placed himself firmly in the middle of the corridor. It wouldn’t stop the slave, but it would give him a moment of pause, if he had to hurt Nicaise on his way. He was weak like that. "And then the guards will find you, and the Prince will finish the job he started on your back."

“ _No_. If you’re going to betray me, do it now, Nicaise. Run to Laurent if you want, and tell him what you want. He already knows.” 

That was hard to make sense of: he couldn’t imagine the Prince willingly letting his slave go. The Prince did nothing he didn’t want, unless the Regent forced him to, everyone knew that, and all the Regent wanted was for them to fuck each other. “Why isn’t he stopping you, then? Did you hurt him?”

“No,” the slave said. “I did not.” 

“Then take me with you,” he insisted. He did not want to be drawn into another game between Regent and Prince, the sting of the previous one still too close. The Prince, with his cruel words and dark moods, could not be Nicaise’s concern; the only thing he cared about, suddenly, was being far from these men that would kill family with the stroke of a pen. And the slave, barbarian though he was, had promised not to hurt him before. “I will scream if you don’t. I’ve seen you now, so you have to do what I want. And I’m coming with you.” 

“And you won’t scream when we pass the guards?”

“You’ll just have to trust me.” 

“I don’t have— Fine,” the slave relented. “Let’s go.” And then, of all stupid options available to him, began walking towards the front of the Prince’s apartments. 

Nicaise reached out, grabbing one of the slave’s arms. It was broad, warm, and strong, and his fingers did not even circle it halfway. “Stop,” he hissed. “You’re the one who’ll get us caught!”

Under his guidance they took the servants’ halls instead, passages he had long come to know well. One of the slave’s thick hands wrapped tight around his arm, especially once they finally went too far from the Prince’s apartments for his excuses to fool any but the dullest of kitchen boys. 

The slave stopped. “I can’t go outside like this,” he said, meaning his clothes. He was wearing little, even for a Veretian pet; maybe it was punishment, for the time he’d angered the Prince and lost him his monies and his lands. It was also true. 

“Do you swear the Prince was unhurt?”

“When I left him, he was.” His tone rang sincere, and Nicaise found himself believing him. There was no time to look further, not with the sheaf of papers threatening to slip from under his arm. 

He swallowed, and nodded, and decided. “The kitchen gate won’t be guarded tonight — Govart bribed the guards so he could sneak out for a fuck,” he said, but didn’t say how he had been hiding under Govart’s bed at the time, shaking with fear of being found, and with anger at having been sent there. “We can go out that way. And we can get clothes from the laundry rooms.” 

It took some time to find shirts and trousers that would fit them both. The slave insisted they be plain and dark, so as to better hide them in the night, and didn’t lace his new outfit as tightly as propriety demanded. Nicaise changed too, feigning modesty so the slave would not see him tuck the letter into the pocket of his new coat. 

After that, it was not hard. They both kept to the shadows as they cleared the kitchen gate, which stood empty and dark, and the slave’s hand on Nicaise’s arm grew tighter still. Once outside the slave dragged them both into the first darkened alleyway they passed. “Dawn won’t come for a few hours,” he said, “and the streets are too empty right now. Is there an eastern road out of the city?”

“Why would I know that?” 

The grip on Nicaise’s arm became tighter still, and then the slave spoke, low and firm. “You made me bring you along, Nicaise, but I will not have you be a burden - if you are uncooperative I will tie you up and leave you behind. The patrols will be out soon. I’m sure they’d eventually find you and return you to your master, mostly unharmed.” There was a new warning tone in his voice, a note of command. Even this little freedom had already altered him. 

He’d been rebellious at first, Nicaise recalled with a sharp stab of fright. He forced himself to stand straighter.

They made their way through the city cautiously, slowly, unseen by the patrols loudly roaming after them, until the stench of horse shit drifted towards them from somewhere nearby, and brought them to a sudden halt. “ _Horses_ ,” said the slave, making it sound like the best idea he had ever had. 

The smell led to a locked gate, perhaps the back of an inn. Once they cleared it the slave asked in a harsh whisper, “Can you saddle a horse?”

“ _No_ ,” he replied. The stupidity of the question distracted him from the urgency of it all, and he added. “Isn’t that what stable boys are there for?” 

The slave sighed. “Can you at least ride?” 

“Yes,” Nicaise said to that. After all, how hard could it be? He’d gone riding with the Prince, once, and hadn’t fallen off, although whenever the court travelled to Chastillon he preferred to remain indoors. The Regent liked him better when his skin was unblemished and light. 

“All right. Come here. And remember, one sound and—“

“Yes, yes,” he hissed. “You’ll truss me up like a hog and leave me for some lucky bastard to find.”

It all went surprisingly well. No horses spooked and trampled them both to death, like Nicaise had thought they were wont to do, no couples snuck in for a quick fuck against the hay, and the slave had two animals saddled in no time. He mounted one, an imposingly large and dark thing, and handed the reins of the second one to him. Last time the Prince had helped him mount with a smirk, although his instructions had been straightforward and true. 

The slave looked at him from atop his horse. “You can’t ride, can you?” 

Nicaise felt himself flush but, stubbornly, did not actually reply. 

“All right,” said the slave, rubbing a hand against his face. “Hold up your arms.” Without dismounting he leaned down and settled Nicaise behind him, so that all he could see was the broad expanse of his back. His shirt was a finer thing than it had seemed, and Nicaise idly wondered who they had stolen it from, and whether they would notice it was gone. He would. 

“With both of us the horse won’t be able to go as fast — or as far,” the slave said, “but there’s no time to teach you now. Hold on to me.” 

And with that they left. They rode slowly through the empty city streets as the sky threatened to lighten above their heads. The clopping of their horse was muted by the sounds of the slowly rousing city, and drew no patrols to them. As soon as the buildings began to thin out, revealing glimpses of open land beyond, the slave drove the horse until they were cantering down the road and Nicaise had no choice but to wrap his arms tight around him to not fall off. Arles was smaller and fainter every time he turned his head to gaze at it; when the sun finally rose it was no longer there at all. 

But they didn’t stop then, not even when on a stretch of long, straight road Nicaise bravely unclenched his arms from around the slave’s middle to pinch his shoulder and said, “I’m _hungry_.”

“Did you bring coin to pay for your food?” the slave asked without turning, and it was then that Nicaise realised all the gold they probably had was around his neck, and his wrists. When he made no reply, the slave added, “Then we carry on.“

It was only once the sun hung high in the sky and Nicaise had been forcing himself not to nod off and fall off the horse that they veered off the road, picking their way through a small forested patch. Both the horse and the slave seemed to know where they want to go; they quickly came to swiftly running stream. How they had found it, Nicaise didn’t know, but then the slave dismounted, and held out a hand for him to do the same, and he no longer cared. His legs, his thighs, his back — everything hurt. His knees were unsteady, and to his embarrassment he almost crumpled to the ground.

“You should drink,” the slave said, busying himself with leading their horse to the water’s edge and tethering him to a tree. “We rest only for a brief while.”

“I’m hungry.”

“It’s summertime,” came the reply. “I’m sure there’s berries somewhere. Find us some.”

“Fuck off.” Nicaise slumped to the ground. His belly made a loud sound. The slave sat down too, and was stretching his massive back, wincing whenever he pushed too far. Nicaise’s belly grumbled again. 

“Don’t think about it too much, it’ll make it easier to bear. And now tell me why you made me bring you along.”

The letter, he didn’t say. I didn’t want to be a part of that. He stared resolutely at the sky, framed by tree leaves on all sides.

“Fine,” the slave said. “Keep your secrets, for now. But understand this — once we reach Akielos I will gladly see you returned back to this forsaken place, if you wish, but until then you are my prisoner. I won’t let you hinder me.” 

“You don’t even have a sword.” 

“I don’t need a sword, against boys like you.” It was as much a warning as it was a fact, and it immediately brought to mind images of the palace ring, of how the slave defeated Govart with only his hands. How he rejected Nicaise, after the fact. Again he wondered whether he hadn’t made a terrible mistake, exchanging a master he knew for one he did not. “If you’re thirsty, drink now. We’ll set out soon.”

When the sun began sliding down the sky they returned to the road, and found it crowded with shabbily dressed peasants trudging back and forth on foot, and on ponies and on carts. The slave kept tugging his sleeves down and trying to close the collar of his shirt to hide the telltale glimmer there too, but he looked ridiculous all the same, the large hulk of a man in his mismatched clothes. Not Veretian at all. Arms wound tight around him, Nicaise could sense that he realised it too, and felt the tension that shot up his back every time another traveller hailed them as they rushed by. 

Oddly, no soldiers came thundering down the road after them, to capture and detain, to return Nicaise to the Regent’s rooms, the slave to the Prince’s cross. Had whoever sent the patrols after them last night given up already? Did they think them dead, or did they simply not care? The Regent would have noticed his absence by now. He would believe Nicaise taken against his will, stolen in the night by a mad Akielon bent on escape. He wouldn’t suspect Nicaise’s treachery, at least not yet. And he would want the letter back. As long as Nicaise had the letter there was hope for him still. He could swallow his fear and his distaste, and go back and pretend none of it had been his choice. He _could_. All he needed was a head start.

That afternoon they rode long and hard, eventually turning into a smaller road that ran south and skirted close to more woodland on the left, and endless fields of something or other on the right. Thin grey tendrils of smoke would become visible ahead at times, but they always gave them ample breadth, and when they stopped it was almost dark. The slave helped him dismount and then they both stood, uneasily attempting to stretch away the weariness of the ride in their own ways. Nicaise tried to rub the numbness from his legs; the slave rolled his shoulders back and forth, one of his strong hands pressing into a muscle on his back. “We’ll set out again when the moon is high, but until then you should try to sleep. It’s been a long day.” 

“And you?” Nicaise asked. 

“I’ll keep watch.” And then, reading too much into the hesitation in Nicaise’s voice, he added, “You’ll be safe. I promise I won’t do anything to you.”

It was hard to get comfortable on the ground. Hunger and the unrelenting dampness of the forest meant he had barely rested before the slave shook him awake and helped him mount once more. Rocked by the gentle rhythm of the horse’s steady gait he found himself nodding off, his arms slackening as his head lolled forward, resting against the slave’s back. Pressed against him he could feel the ridges of his scars, and for the first time he thought to wonder about who he was, before arriving in Arles. 

They rode through the night, halting only when they spied a labourer toiling in a field up ahead, at dawn. Once again the slave urged him to rest; he had a worn and weary air himself, and it occurred to Nicaise he likely had not slept at all since leaving the palace behind. The slave did not trust him; neither of them trusted the other, and the slave would not sleep while he believed Nicaise awake. And Nicaise needed him to sleep, so he could leave, and find someone to help him. 

So Nicaise sat down against the smoothest looking tree and ignored the many complaints of his body. He woke to find the sun high in the cloudless sky and the slave slumped against a tree of his own, breathing deep and slow. He didn’t stir when Nicaise rose and walked by him, or when he dipped his cupped hands into the stream, drinking his fill. The cold water washed the dried sweat away. He could go now, if he wanted — he could go back, and give the Regent the letter he’d been cradling under his shirt for two nights, and apologise with teary eyes, tell him how the slave had dragged him along, and get all that was his back. 

If there was one man nearby, surely there were more, not too far. 

Making sure the letter had not slipped from his pocket he set off, careful and light-stepped, and did not look back. 

It took little time to find the road, and soon afterwards a small village. The sight of it was enough to soothe most of Nicaise’s aches, and to wake his rumbling belly again. But when he arrived he found the streets emptier and quieter than he had hoped for; the market stalls unattended, a single mule tied to a wheel, braying alone. The silence made him wary, and it was a good thing: most of the villagers, when he finally found them, were gathered around two men in the armour of the Regent’s Guard, dark broad horses heaving next to them. 

“We seek two fugitives,” one soldier cried. “One of them is an Akielon slave, who made a cowardly, craven attempt on the Prince’s life. The other is a boy, a young man, who dared steal from the Crown. Anyone who leads to their capture or death will be rewarded by the Regent of Vere himself.” The second soldier carried a roll of parchment with him, which he unrolled, and held up for all to see. On it were two drawings, crude likenesses of the slave and of Nicaise, but not crude enough that the resemblance could be denied. “Anyone who gives them aid or succour will be charged with the crime of treason and forfeit their life to the Crown.”

Two fugitives, not just one, and Nicaise’s face on a royal warrant. The edges of the world suddenly engulfed by a threatening black. He staggered backwards and as soon as there were two corners between him and the townsfolk he ran away from them as fast as he could. It had been fanciful to think he ever could go back after that first night, sulking through palace halls, slinking through shadows. Maybe every word in the letter was false, the Regent interested only in seeing where Nicaise’s loyalties would fall. Maybe it had been nothing but a test, and Nicaise had failed it and thrown away every good thing in his life for no purpose at all. 

This time he did not bother concealing his steps. What did it matter if the slave found him now? At least he hadn’t tried to kill Nicaise yet. For all that he was an Akielon barbarian, he hadn’t even tried to _fuck_ him yet. Hardly the stuff nightmares were made from, in Delfeur. He was back in the woods now, and he ran blindly, nose running and eyes blurry as his feet splashed on the stream bed, until suddenly a hand grabbed at the collar of his jacket and tugged, hard. 

“Where did you go?” the slave demanded, shifting his grip and turning Nicaise around. His voice was equal parts anger and worry, and his face held the same things, poorly disguised. 

“Nicaise,” the slave said again, although it was clear again that he was no slave at all. His voice was rich with command, and his hands around Nicaise’s arm were painfully tight, just like the first night. “ _Where did you go?_ “

Drawing in a sharp heaving gasp, he tried to twist free, but the slave was relentless, and his grip unbreakable. “Let me go!” he hissed. “ _Let me go!_ ”

He shook Nicaise, instead, lifting him so his feet did not touch the ground. Maybe it was fear, the thing that was beginning to creep into his eyes, but it did not alter his voice, still made of sharp steel. “Tell me where you went. Are the Regent’s men coming this way?”

“I don’t _fucking_ know,” Nicaise snarled, still trying to break free. “Let me go! ”

The sound of something trampling on the underbrush sent them both into sudden stillness. But where other men would’ve loosened their grip and given him a chance to escape, the next thing he knew he was being pressed hard against the slave, one thick arm around his chest, the other hand flush against his mouth. It made breathing hard, but it left his legs and arms free, so he kicked and scrabbled at whatever part of the man he could reach, and when that brought no reprieve, bit down on his fingers as hard as he could. 

The slave let out a surprised gasp, but his hand did not withdraw. Only when no axe-wielding farmer or fully armed soldier appeared through the trees did he fling Nicaise away. It was an uncomfortable landing, roots digging into him as he rolled onto his side, and once he could breathe enough air again he raised his gaze and spat. It didn’t go far, but it was still a rewarding, faint, red. “I hate you, you fucking brute!” 

"You fight dirty," the slave said. He had dipped his hand in the stream and was examining it, with traces of surprise still visible on his face. Speaking more to himself than to Nicaise he added, "but I suppose dirty fighting is all this country knows.”

They watched each other warily, neither moving to resume their fight, until the slave let out a lengthy sigh. “Now, tell me where you went. Are we safe here?”

Suddenly he felt too weary to continue fighting. “I don’t know.” He told the sliave what he’d seen in the village, and the reality of it grew firmer with the retelling. There would be no going back, after all. 

“They’ve guessed we journey south,” the slave said. He did not sound surprised. “It’s dangerous for us to use the roads. For now, we’ll travel through the woods.”

And they did. Only when the sun began to set did they ride near the forest’s edge. Here the brush was thinner, and easier to traverse; they moved faster than they had all day. Eventually they spotted a farmhouse, its windows dark, a thin curl of smoke rising from the chimney, and next to it, a small outbuilding. The slave brought their horse to a halt. 

Before they left the cover of the trees they regarded each other. “They want me dead too,” Nicaise said, forestalling whatever vaguely threatening remark the slave had been about to make. 

“I don’t know what you thought would happen,” the slave replied. “The Prince is not a particularly forgiving man. Come. Watch me, and do exactly as I do.” 

They crept along the trees until they were in front of the storehouse, safe from view from the house. It was only then that they started moving forward, keeping low, darting from tree to tree, moonlight guiding their feet. The door, when they finally reached it, was latched but not locked, and for that first instant the moonlit inside seemed to Nicaise to be filled with more riches than any room back in Arles. Smoked hocks of ham hung from the rafters, and saucissons too; there was an entire shelf stacked with cheese. He lifted the lid from a barrel and found it filled to the brim with apples, and although their skin was wrinkled and the flesh sandy, as he bit into one of them he was sure that it was the best he’d ever had. He tucked three more into the pockets of his clothes, feeling the letter crumple around one of them. 

The slave, meanwhile, had found a cloth sack and was filling it with food. “In here,” he said. Nicaise grabbed handfuls of apples and threw them in; he tugged at the saucissons but they would not come free. From a shelf the slave picked up a small paring knife; he sawed through the thin rope and added it to the sack, and then motioned for Nicaise to throw in a wineskin.

“That’s enough,” he said. “Now we need to go, before anyone comes. Leave everything just as we found it — we were lucky there was no dog.” 

Neither spoke while they ate. Their food was plain and dull and unfit for a meal in the palace halls but after two days of relentless hunger neither of them cared at all. The wine was a harsh, coarse thing on Nicaise’s throat. The slave also grimaced when he drank; their gazes met in clear agreement and he emptied the rest onto the ground. 

“I need to sleep,” the slave said once they were satisfied. There was still some food left in the sack, but not enough for another meal like the one they’d just had. “I trust you won’t try to escape again.”

“Where would I even go?” 

Already stretching on the ground, the slave nodded. He arched his back a couple of times, raising it off the ground, flexing his shoulders. There was, Nicaise had to admit, something mesmerising about the way his muscles would shift, although even to him they seemed stiff and ill-used, underneath the net of scars. “In that case, keep watch. Wake me if you hear anything approach.”

It was an uneventful night, even if its sounds made it feel not so at times, and he had to try hard to ignore the sensation of insects exploring his skin. When the slave woke there was only a faint touch of surprise on his face at finding Nicaise leaning against the same tree he’d chosen last night, and after filling the wineskin with water from a nearby stream they resumed their journey. This forest was thick and uneven, so they made poor speed, but when they drew close to its edge they met thriving farmland, too busy for them to leave the cover of the trees.

“You can sleep while we ride, if you want,” the slave told him. “At this pace you won’t fall off. We’ll stop soon, and ride harder tonight.”

This was risky, admitted the slave, as they sped down small moonlit country lanes, but also the only way they could travel fast, and they needed to do that. He needed to get back to his country. Days blurred. The woods thinned as they travelled, and the heat rose; they took turns resting at noon. When the slave slept Nicaise would take the letter out — it had begun fraying around the edges, and looked badly worn, but miraculously no real damage had come to it so far. He reread it often, always frightened of the time it would reveal itself false, but he knew too little of the past to judge one way or another, and could only hope that its words were not lies. 

Why had he brought it this far? He could give it to the slave, he supposed, if they reached Delfeur. But what would _he_ do, with the knowledge that the Regent of Vere was a traitorous man? It changed nothing. He wondered, sometimes, what would have happened if he’d given it to the Prince instead? The Regent, exposed and dead. Nicaise, branded a traitor by all sides. Maybe kicked out of the palace, prowling the streets of Arles, calling on his cousins for aid. Maybe not so different from this. Maybe even worse. 

Now that betraying one meant betraying both the slave seemed content to leave him be, and so they hardly spoke. He watched Nicaise when they made camp, but where other men would have been greedy, or biting and sharp, there was mostly hesitance and distaste to the slave’s gaze, as if he were frightened of what he would learn if he stared too long. And yet, one night when the moon was closer to half again than to full and they were, Nicaise guessed, somewhere in the south end of Barbin — he had been here once, with the Regent and Audin — he found himself curious and asked, “Do you have a name?”

“I do,” the slave said. “You can call me Damen, if you like.”

“That's a stupid name,” he replied, because it was. It was not one he would willingly use. “You need a Veretian name. What if someone asks?”

“And who would ask? A name won’t fool anyone. What we need is to remain unseen, and for me to take all this gold off.”

But travelling at night, when the countryside slept as they rushed past, made it hard to find a willing blacksmith. It was only when their horse threw a shoe — or so the slave said — that they approached a village at the break of dawn. Panic surged within him as they approached, the memory of a soldier calling for his death. But the slave insisted their horse couldn’t continue to carry them, and stealing another one was too great a risk, so they hid in the shadow of the trees and watched the farmers tend their land, until the slave grew confident enough to depart. 

“Wait.” Nicaise swallowed hard, speaking around the horror nesting in his gut. “Everyone would recognise a barbarian like you, but I am covered in so much filth no one would guess I’d ever been at Court. I’ll go.” It was true. 

“Nicaise,” began the slave, and then trailed off. 

“You really think he’d take me back? I’m not worth anything to him anymore.”

“That’s not…” he said, and stopped again. “Go. If we are not wanted here, come back and find me. And if we are, run and hide. I will find you.” It was not clear if it was a promise or a threat, but his gaze was different, and his tone too, less rich with warnings than any time before. 

Nicaise went. He searched every wall for a poor likeness of himself, and ignored the scent of fresh bread drifting from a nearby kitchen; before turning corners he stopped and listened for the heavy footfalls of men-at-arms eager for reward. But even at the town hall he found little other than an old man who wished him good morning with milky eyes and a thick Chasteigne drawl. The Regent’s men, it seemed, had not reached this far. His heart slowed down.

He returned to the slave, and together they let the smoke billowing from his forge draw them to the local blacksmith. His regard was sharp and guarded, and for a moment they all stood silent and still as tension grew rich. Maybe the Regent’s men had been here, after all. 

Without letting himself think about it, Nicaise dropped his shoulders and brought a quiver to his voice. The slave was a runaway, he said, fleeing from cruel masters down south, in Delpha, in rightful Delfeur. He was protecting Nicaise. They had escaped together. They were making for Arles. They knew it was far. Wouldn’t he help them? Throughout, the slave’s eyes remained fixed on Nicaise, wide with terribly disguised surprise. 

With a lengthy, considered gaze at the weight of gold around the slave’s neck, the blacksmith nodded. 

"For your help. And your silence,” the slave said when it was done, handing over half of one of the cuffs. 

“You’re not too far from Arles,” replied the blacksmith. “Eight days’ ride, if you are brave enough to ride on the roads. It should be easier, without the gold,” he added with a smile, and it was not an entirely friendly thing. And then the man tossed over a handful of lei, said it was their change. They could use it to get a room at the inn, wash away all their filth, and all their clothes. They would draw less attention, if they did not stink. 

There had been something hungry in the blacksmith’s gaze, and neither of them felt easy, staying in the same town as him. And so they rode, cautiously until the slave was satisfied that their horse had not been lamed by his work, and then hard once more. But in the evening, much to Nicaise’s delight, they took the man’s advice. 

“He was right,” said the slave while they ate, a real warm meal. “We have to use the roads. The moon is waning. Soon it’ll be too dark to ride at night.” Although he had been keeping them hidden beneath his clothes all of this time, without the weight of gold around his neck and wrists he was transformed again, his previous self already slippery in Nicaise’s mind. Whoever, whatever he had been before was reasserting itself, and here, amongst farmers and labourers who spent their days in the sun, a certain grandeur revealed itself. 

But Nicaise told him, “You still look like a barbarian brute,” all the same. 

“Thank you.”

“You need a haircut and a shave, if we’re to travel by day and not get mistaken for treacherous fugitives.”

The slave nodded, this time doubtlessly amused. But he sounded serious enough when he replied, “We wouldn’t want that.”

Once they had eaten their fill they took turns in the bath. When Nicaise finished he found the slave stretched on the only bed in their room, face shaven and eyes closed. “Damen,” he said, very quietly, just to try it out, and it still sounded stupid, the letters all wrong for a Veretian man. The slave opened his eyes and said, “wake me when you can’t stay awake anymore. We’ll trade.”

In the morning Nicaise easily read tension in the slave’s back, and in the strain of his own arms wrapped around it, as they cautiously returned to well-maintained roads. The sun hung high and hot in the sky, untroubled by clouds; the land would resent the dryness, the slave said, and the people would too. Nicaise, letter still tucked against him, fine ink smudged and blurred by his sweat, did not. The road they travelled led first to Ravenel, and then turned westwards towards Fortaine. Once, the slave explained, it had led to Marlas too, but that had been abandoned and destroyed, torn up by retreating Veretian troops six years ago. 

“You mean when you Akielon bastards stole Delfeur,” Nicaise said. 

“Vere stole it before,” the slave replied in an even tone. It had become harder to rile him. “We merely took back what belonged to us.”

Ten days, he guessed, since Arles. Time enough for regret and resignation to seep and settle into his every bone. Pressed tight against the slave as they rode, their sweat mingling into a single disgusting dampness, he pushed away thoughts of what he would do, after this. The slave would find kinship and home across the border, but Nicaise… he knew Akielons kept slaves, for the same purposes pets existed in Vere. He had met them, dim creatures with pliant flesh and nothing but submission in their eyes. It was not a fate for him. And he would need a fate, soon. They must be close to the border now, although they had no means to be certain, save stumbling upon an Akielon border patrol. 

Instead they nearly rode into a Veretian one.

The slave tugged hard on the horse’s reins when they caught their first glimpse of the men ahead, red pennants streaming atop their canvas tents, and they veered sharply away trusting that the good fortune that had seen them cross all of Vere unhindered still held. But it did not. When Nicaise turned he saw three soldiers, mounted and galloping towards them. “They’re following!” he cried. 

It was a needless warning: the next instant an arrow flew past them and sunk into a tree. The slave dug his heels into their horse, and Nicaise pressed himself firmly against him as they surged forward. He had never been more aware of the expanse of his back, of his body, unshielded and exposed. They swerved frantically; something scratched and tore at his leg and after that he decided to squeeze his eyes shut. If he had to die he wanted it to be painless, and fast. Watching arrows fly had no part in that.

Their escape went on for very long, it seemed to him. When he thought he couldn’t hold on anymore the slave shouted something in a harsh tongue, and pulled their horse to a sudden stop. Opening his eyes, Nicaise found they were surrounded by men. They wore red, too, but their swords and words were foreign and strange, and when the slave dismounted and said, voice thick with emotion, “These are my people, Nicaise. We are safe now,” Nicaise crumpled forward. Maybe he fell off the horse. 

He came to in a tent, on an uncomfortable cot, with a throbbing ache in his thigh. Quiet voices surrounded him. One of them was the slave’s, making conversation in his language; he did not sound deferential or hesitant or any other thing Nicaise felt at the mercy of Akielon soldiers. Rather, as he listened to their words it seemed to him as if the other men addressed him with unexpected respect and awe. “Damianos,” they kept repeating like moonstruck fools, and it took him some time to decide that it was likely the slave’s real name. It rang oddly familiar, rich with foreign sounds he couldn’t quite twist his tongue around. It seemed a grand name, to Nicaise; certainly it suited the man better than anything else so far. He tried rolling it around in his own mouth, saying it without making a sound. 

It didn’t work. He coughed and drew the attention of everyone in the tend. Talk stopped and the slave came into view, wearing one of those ridiculous Akielon dresses and a short red cape. He had shaved again, and someone had trimmed his hair, and his transformation was complete. Nothing remained in him of the man who'd fled the Prince's chambers in the middle of the night, of the man Nicaise had entrusted with his fate. 

“You’re awake,” he said. “I’m glad.”

Nicaise coughed again. A different slave — a real one, he supposed — offered him something to drink, hopefully a pain-killing draught of some sort. “You were fortunate — the arrow just grazed your leg,” the slave continued. “Although it will scar.” 

“A battle scar of my very own. Great. I hope your ham-handed physicians can sew in a straight line, at least?”

“I am sorry, Nicaise.” 

He rolled over and closed his eyes, so he wouldn’t have to keep staring at the slave’s outsized kneecaps. The movement jolted his leg, and made him whimper with the unexpected pain of it. “Who gives a damn? We both know I’m never going back.” 

In the silence that followed Nicaise felt himself the subject of the slave’s gaze, studied and pondered, an incomprehensible being. “You could be more than that. Do you have a family? Maybe you could return to them.”

“Oh yes.” He wanted to spit the words at him, but his face was pressed into a small, hard pillow, and all he’d manage if he tried would be to dirty that. “I’m sure my sister would love having to feed me again. And I would love nothing more than to return to week-old bread and gruel flavoured with nothing but rotten fish heads.”

The sound of canvas rustling silenced anything the slave might have been about to reply, and then a new voice spoke. Nicaise made out Damianos once more amongst all the other words, and decided he didn’t care at all. The cot might have been lumpy and hard, but it was still better than the ground. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he muttered as he closed his eyes. “It’s not like you’re any good at it.“

When he woke the pain in his leg was much improved, a dull and distant echo of what it had been before, and he was alone. Beyond the tent horses neighed, and men talked, and armour clanged, and it seemed to him that there was activity everywhere, swelling and building towards something he couldn’t quite grasp. He’d never heard the sounds of a military camp before, and he found there was something frightening and comforting both to being somewhere that couldn’t remind him of where he’d come from. 

“They call you Damianos,” Nicaise drawled, when the slave reappeared.

“That is my name.” 

“I’ve heard it before. Damianos, the prince-killer. Like that?”

A silence, then, which made little sense. Maybe it was only in Vere that Damianos was called that. Perhaps Akielons called him something else. 

“Like that,” came the eventual reply. “I came to tell you we ride for Marlas. We’re too close to the border here.” 

Nicaise nodded his agreement — what else could he have done, in the middle of an Akielon camp? And then a thought struck. “My jacket, I… There was a letter. Where is it?”

“I’ve been keeping it safe.” 

He would not give thanks. Instead he said, “You can read it. If you want.” 

“It’s private. I wouldn’t do that.” 

“No, I... It’s not mine. I stole it from Govart, that night. It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

This time, when they broke camp, he did not ride behind the slave. Instead he was given a horse of his own — they would be travelling slowly, slow enough that the slave thought he would not fall off. By the time they reached Marlas, the throbbing in his thigh was a constant and distracting thing, but it did not keep him from missing the sight of an Akielon commander at the gates, falling to his knees in front of the slave and being immediately pulled into a familiar embrace. “Damianos,” he said too, and then all the men fell to their knees, the word sweeping through them, swelling until Nicaise finally understood. 

“Damianos!” he cried out with them, but there was no reverence in his tone. “You’re the _prince-killer_? _You_ killed Prince Auguste?”

The slave turned sharply to him. “This is not the time.” 

But Nicaise was too stunned not to blurt out, “Does he know? No wonder he hates you so much!”

The commander looked at Nicaise for the first time, and _Damianos prince-killer_ explained in Veretian, so they both could understand, “This is Nicaise — he was the Regent’s pet, and he comes willingly.”

There were meetings, after that. Nicaise was not involved, which suited him; he had little interest in grand Veretian affairs and even less in Akielon ones. He tried exploring the fort, but the many Akielons swarming it, and the mounting pain in his leg meant he did not make it far. Damianos found him after sunset, and behind him the commander from the gates, deep frowns etched on their faces. Nicaise stiffened at the sight. 

The other Akielon brought his own well-worn sheaf of papers and a heavy sapphire ring. He set them down on the table. “It arrives two months before,” he said about the letter, his Veretian exceedingly poor. “Three yesterdays a messenger from Vere with this.”

"That’s the Prince’s signet,” Nicaise said, wanting to reach out. He’d never seen it worn, but he’d heard it spoken of. Sometimes in covetous tones.

"Yes," the other Akielon agreed. 

Damianos prince-killer told Nicaise, “Show him yours.”

Slowly, suddenly hesitant, Nicaise offered the Akielon commander his own letter. He must have read the language better than he spoke it, for his face grew wan and slack as he turned the pages and understanding dawned. 

The prince-killer spoke Veretian once more. “I have no fondness for Laurent of Vere, but I believe Akielos is safer with him than his uncle on the throne. We will honour this request.” 

Afterwards, the commander retreated, and the two of them were left alone. 

“You read it, then.”

“I had no idea! thought it was a letter from your family, a childhood keepsake!”

Nicaise scoffed at the thought of that. He had kept nothing from those times. “I was going to give it to the Prince, that night,” he admitted. “But he would’ve killed the Regent. And I didn’t want that.”

“So instead you came with me?”

He nodded. It was easier than speaking. 

“The night we escaped,” Damianos began, slowly, as if the memory was difficult to recount, “I was brought to his rooms by three men, who had hoped I would rape and kill him. Instead Laurent and I killed them. They carried Akielon weapons, and whoever sent them obviously meant to start a war between our countries. It is clear to me now that they were not sent by my brother.” He fell silent for a few moments, and finally added. “I think the Regent has been trying to claim the throne of Vere for some time.”

He stepped closer and raised one arm to squeeze at Nicaise’s shoulder, the way he’d seen guards do countless times. “We will ride to war. Not you, but if the chance comes, I promise to tell Laurent what you did.” 

“Tell him I was the worst hostage you’ve ever had.”

“You chose to come along,” Damianos reminded him in a gentle tone. His hand on Nicaise’s shoulder was heavy, and bereft of threat or command. It offered nothing other than warmth. “But if it makes things easier for you, I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Damen! Finally!

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this story since it feels like forever! My hope is to update it once a week, but life can get pretty hectic sometimes, so do not hold it against me if I miss a Monday. It will be finished, I promise - things 1, 2, and 3 are fully written, 4 80% of the way there and 5 is well on its way too. 
> 
> Eventually there might even be a mixtape, but if you want the short version of my musical inspiration, just put Patrick Wolf’s Lycanthropy, and Sundark and Riverlight on endless repeat, and play [Wolf Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEVdLtioZig&list=PLx0B6kqBdrxfpJ4OPO04ma-O6WlxUOe3C&index=16) at least twice as much as any other track, because it is my ultimate Nicaise writing song. This chapter was also rather motivated by Laura Marling's [Devil's Spoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDJPRRUH07k), which lends the story its title. Although the video's got nothing to do with what I was going for, so don't watch it for any clues. :)


End file.
